<b>Vincent Girardin Volnay Santenots 1995</b>
Thanks to my parents as always. First fully mature bottle or is there any chance the tannin will still mellow more before the fruit fades? Peppery beef juice and brown spice, soft but sharply etched fruit. This has never been a particularly fleshy or fruity wine, and one can now see which direction it is going to take in the future, with the acids probably going to stick out it the long run (Pinot Noir's fruit tends to mature more quickly than its tannin, and the acidity level never seems to change at all). Good complexity, depth and length. Very tasty indeed. Excellent!

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

P.S.
I usually avoid using numerical scores on the web (in order to avoid e-mails solely concentrating on the virtues of numerical rating, since I'd really rather talk about the wines themselves). For those who have problems interpreting my "verbal scoring", the numerical correspondences are as follows:

79 and below = NOT GOOD (i.e. no need to figure out exactly)
80 – 84 = GOOD (same as 16 and over in the European 20-point system)
85 – 89 = VERY GOOD (same as 17 and over; I sometimes use EXCELLENT or ALMOST-OUTSTANDING to indicate 88 – 89)
90 – 94 = OUTSTANDING (same as 18 and over)
95 – 99 = GREAT (or CLASSIC, same as 19 and over; I sometimes use NEAR-PERFECT to indicate a 98 – 99 score)
100 = PERFECT (20 out of 20)

Note I will rarely buy wine below my own EXCELLENT rating (that's where wine really starts standing out for individuality from the mass of technically impeccably-made wines) except for an occasional and there truly exceptional QPR (I must insist any wine in the VERY GOOD category with me is serious stuff, way above average wine, that I still wouldn't buy because I've got to somehow limit my wine buying). But if a wine is costly, it had better be at least OUTSTANDING!

IMHO, one of the better Volnay deals around. I've been a fan since the '98. Haven't touched my '99s in a few yrs or any of the '02s. I passed on '00 & '01 (porbably should have considered '00 as some are very good, i.e. Lafarge, Bouley). Just picked up my '03s last week...thank you Premier Cru.